Review/Theater; Julie Andrews Sings in a Sondheim Revue

Published: April 2, 1993

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Mr. Collins, perkily preppie in Act I and ponderously so in Act II, capsizes completely, both as a singer and an actor, taking "Hello Little Girl" and "Being Alive" with him. Rachel York, the funny 1940's femme fatale of "City of Angels," is asked to be a jarringly anachronistic floozie in the contemporary urban realm of "Putting It Together." She is ill suited to "The Miller's Son," which she belts out in a manner appropriate to "Guys and Dolls," and must bear the brunt of the juvenile sexual gags of the staging, which requires her to simulate a burlesque orgasm and make a lewd hand-puppet out of a napkin.

Because Mr. Durang is not assigned a role at the party -- "Who are you?" Ms. Andrews asks him at one late point, prompting the show's biggest laugh -- he can just be himself. More specifically, he can offer the puckish mock-cabaret persona he has created as a sideline to his playwriting and acting careers. That devilish pose, a wicked inner spirit wrapped within a thin veneer of charming civility, is at one with the Sondheim of "The Frogs" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Mr. Durang's brushes with those scores are a joy, and his truly demented version of "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" from "Company" proves the show's only comic show-stopper, a match for the priceless, similarly gender-reversed sendup of "Man of La Mancha" in his own cabaret act.

Collectors of Sondheim minutiae will find more sly humor in the alterations made in familiar lyrics and in the clever mix-and-match reassembling of song fragments and accompaniments from different musicals in unexpected combinations. (The witty small-band arrangements, sometimes echoing the original orchestrations, are by Chris Walker.) "Putting It Together" can also be applauded for sparing us such obvious notions as, say, having Ms. Andrews sing "Send In the Clowns" or "I'm Still Here."

But even that applause is muted by the obviousness of almost everything else. There is more to Mr. Sondheim than clever puzzle-making and romantic discord. The lows and highs of his mature spectrum, the blistering psychosexual passions of "Sweeney Todd" and the spiritual yearnings of "Sunday in the Park With George," are ignored in this revue, as if the songwriter had been frozen in place since "Side by Side by Sondheim." A novelty version of the song "Putting It Together" aside, the score of "Sunday in the Park" is shunned entirely in "Putting It Together," and "Sweeney Todd" and "Into the Woods" are given far less prominence than the facile pop confections for the film "Dick Tracy."

This show's limited musical diet is easy listening with a vengeance, but is it listening to Sondheim? Surely I am not the only disappointed fan who will go home from this innocuous charade in search of the real thing, on the records that contain all the searing Sondheim that "Putting It Together" leaves out. Putting It Together Words and music by Stephen Sondheim; devised by Mr. Sondheim and Julia McKenzie; directed by Ms. McKenzie; musical staging by Bob Avian; set by Robin Wagner; costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge; lighting by Tharon Musser; musical arrangements by Chris Walker; musical direction by Scott Frankel; sound by Scott Lehrer; production stage manager, Franklin Keysar; production manager, Michael R. Moody. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, managing director; by special arrangement with Cameron Mackintosh. At City Center Stage I, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan. WITH: Julie Andrews, Stephen Collins, Christopher Durang, Michael Rupert and Rachel York.